—Written in tribute to The Idea of Order at Key West by Wallace Stevens

I wanted to repost this one because I am working on several other poems using the same technique. But then how did I write I found ideas in the first place?

The first thing to know is that the poem replicates the structure of Wallace Stevens’ original, The Idea of Order at Key West, in detail. That is to say, I used the same formal patterns or devices wherever possible. In lines with the same meter and the same length as the originals, I rhymed, used alliteration, and put punctuation in the same places. I was already a fan of Stevens’ work, but I read and reread a lot to get a sense of and draw on what you might call his tone, manner, or style—in short, his way of patterning sounds and images to carry weighty and mysterious thoughts with trademark whimsy and composure. I wanted to see what would happen if, given one initial line, I let the form of the poem guide the content—an experiment or puzzle of sorts in the vein of the OULIPO writers. It was a lot of work, it was exasperating at times, but I felt liberated within the constraints, it got the creative juices flowing, and completing the poem was as satisfying as, say, solving a Saturday crossword without cheating (which I’ve never accomplished so far).

The poems I want to imitate/work with next are Musée des Beaux Arts by W. H. Auden and Paris, 7 A.M. by Elizabeth Bishop. In the first, tentatively entitled Musée Rodin, I want to talk about the innumerable hands Rodin made over the course of his career. My idea for the second is less concrete: I feel a certain resonance with the muted hum of panic that in Bishop’s poem inheres in the everyday experience of walking around your own home when you feel the state of the world is about to take a serious turn for the worse. It was written from her experience in Europe between 1935 and 1937. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.

*The image is of Untitled II by Cy Twombly

It gives you an idea of what I feel like my writing (process) is at this point. Scratches. Copying line after line on a blackboard. Not even letters, but loops and swirls.